2026-02-27
- When graduate students arrive on campus for the first time, many of them coming from distant states or other countries, their first days can feel isolating as they navigate choosing a lab and research focus, deciding where to live, securing employment, and building new friendships. These challenges...
2026-02-24 - The task: calculate every movement of every human in New York City and, based on those data, create a picture-perfect map of the city's skyline. Seem impossible?And yet, this resembles what two School of Molecular & Cellular Biology scientists recently accomplished while investigating E....
2026-02-17 - Three faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, including microbiologist Wei Qin, have received Sloan Foundation Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The...
2026-02-16 - The gene most strongly correlated with Alzheimer’s disease also boosts seizure activity by decreasing levels of ions pumps and energy-producing enzymes in neurons, a new study by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found. Furthermore, the energy-making pathway was stimulated...
2026-01-22 - In new research, University of Illinois scientists have challenged previously held scientific ideas about loop-C’s functional role within ligand-gated ion channels, deepening biologists’ understanding of the complex neurotransmission process.Their study,...
2026-01-21 - Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you what a joy it is to discover something they didn’t know they didn’t know. “The best parts of science tend to be serendipitous,” said the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology’s Jhewelle Fitz-Henley. “The things that you find out, you’re like, ‘I did not...
2025-12-17 - Congratulations to recipients of this year's School of MCB faculty and staff awards!It is a school tradition to recognize outstanding members of the community at our year-end holiday party, and this year we presented awards across seven categories, honoring achievements in research, teaching, and...
2025-12-11 - Imagine a treadmill. As it moves, the track is constantly receding but is replenished at an equal rate on the opposite end. The result is a machine in perpetual motion, but which has its length stay exactly the same. For decades, biologists have regarded “treadmilling” as the standard...
2025-12-10 - On Dec. 5, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to discontinue its decades-long recommendation for universal vaccination against hepatitis B beginning at birth. Public health expert and infectious disease physician...
2025-12-09 - The School of Molecular & Cellular Biology is proud to announce the winners of our 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium, held on November 12, 2025. Sixty-five students presented posters of their research to attendees of the event, which was held at the Illini Union.This...
2025-12-04 - Myotonic Dystrophy type 1, also known as DM1, is a genetic disorder that causes progressive muscle weakness, delayed muscle relaxation, and cardiac issues that can often be life-threatening. It is the most common cause of adult-onset muscular dystrophy and affects roughly 1 in 2,000 individuals...
2025-12-01 - Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are piecing together how cancer-emergent non-coding RNAs, or ncRNAs, contribute to disease-related cell phenotypes. The Van Bortle lab has focused extensively on RNA polymerase III (Pol III) —...
2025-11-25 - Amber Smith, a neuroscience major in the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology, is president of the Undergraduate Neuroscience Society. She is also an undergraduate researcher in ...
2025-11-21 - The School of Molecular & Cellular Biology and Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology are pleased to welcome new faculty member Dr. Michael Schappe. He joins the school as an assistant...
2025-11-21 - Though he only completed his postdoctoral work two years ago, the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology’s own Professor Boxuan Zhao already ranks among the world's most influential scientists. Earlier this month, Zhao was...